Old Dead Young (B-Sides & Rarities)

You’d expect a band as willfully eclectic and exploratory as Broken Social Scene to have amassed a healthy amount of outtakes, discarded experiments, and cutting-room-floor curios. But the rarities compilation *Old Dead Young* reveals just how many ready-made anthems-in-waiting were kept off their proper albums and consigned to obscure limited releases or buried altogether. Spanning the Toronto ensemble’s first two decades, *Old Dead Young* showcases BSS in all their classic modes: the ’90s indie rock loyalists (“Do the 95,” the title track), the island-bound daydreamers (an embryonic acoustic version of “National Anthem of Nowhere” that guitarist Andrew Whiteman later retooled for his Apostle of Hustle project), and the mad studio scientists (“Stars and Spit,” a playful tape-splicing mash-up of the *You Forgot It in People* standards “Stars and Sons” and “Lover’s Spit”). And of course, it wouldn’t be a proper BSS album without a climactic, brass-gilded moment of emotional release, and *Old Dead Young* doesn’t disappoint in that department—even if its marquee ballad bears the title of “Death Cock” and finds frontman Kevin Drew weeping about accidentally killing his pet gerbil.

Once a two-person basement recording project, Broken Social Scene came to life onstage as a shadowy improvisational entity with a revolving-door roster, each concert a wholly unique experience dependent on the room, the weather, what they ate for dinner that night, and who was dropping in to play. Where the band’s 2001 debut album, Feel Good Lost, presented BSS as an anonymous ambient project that reflected its humble, homespun origins, their electrifying live performances from that era rallied an extended family of performers with roots in post-rock (Justin Peroff, Do Make Say Think’s Charles Spearin), Latin jazz (Andrew Whiteman), art-folk (Feist), synth-pop (Amy Millan and Evan Cranley, also of Stars), dance-punk (Metric’s Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw), and country rock (Jason Collett). But by pursuing improvisational freedom over commercial considerations, Broken Social Scene set a new gold standard for indie rock in the 21st century with 2002’s You Forgot It In People, an album that pushed the genre far beyond its noisy ’90s slacker roots toward a more sonically expansive, emotionally expressive vision. And with follow-up releases like the blissfully chaotic Broken Social Scene (2005), the rapturous Forgiveness Rock Record (2010), and the intricate, insidiously melodic Hug of Thunder (2017), Broken Social Scene have amassed a thrillingly amorphous, unpredictable body of work. Old Dead Young: B-Sides & Rarities is everything in between: A career-spanning collection of B-sides, rarities, and outtakes pulled from 20 years of 7-inches, compilations, soundtracks, unreleased music, and hard-to-find releases. Despite being a compilation, it has the same cohesion of a meticulously considered full length album with all the familiar euphoric highs and meditative lows.

The Canadian indie rock band sorts through a largely subdued grab bag of material on this career-spanning set, highlighted by offbeat experiments and homespun, intimate moments.

Old Dead Young: B-Sides & Rarities by Broken Social Scene Album review by Greg Walker. The LP drops on January 14, 2022 via Arts & Crafts